When Life Gives You Lemons, Make (Your Own) Lemonade: Beyoncé Sued for Her Latest Album Trailer

Beyoncé’s Lemonade left a sour taste in at least one person’s mouth. Matthew Fulks, a Louisville-based filmmaker and creative director at the WDRB Kentucky news station, is taking the singer to court for copyright infringement. The plaintiff claims that Lemonade, Beyoncé’s trailer for her latest album, copies “visual and sonic elements” from his short-film “Palinoia.”

Stairway to Infringement

Intro: “The Hook” This summer, an American jury found that “Stairway to Heaven” [hereafter Stairway] rockers Led Zeppelin did not infringe the song “Taurus” [hereafter Taurus], performed by the band Spirit. The plaintiff, Randy Wolfe—or rather, a trustee for the trust which owns the late Wolfe’s copyright—was Spirit’s songwriter, guitarist and vocalist, and the copyright […]

Re Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation

Canadian users of Facebook may be familiar with the process of “tagging” photos – adding the names of the people to images – but they may not be familiar with the ‘Tag Suggestion’ feature on Facebook. Tag Suggestions, which automatically scans photos uploaded to the social media site in an attempt to identify for the […]

Is This What it Sounds Like when Doves Cry: The PRINCE Act and Canadian Privacy Law

The once proposed PRINCE Act [the Act] has now been set aside after being rushed through the Minnesota state senate. The Act sought to create a new property right in a person’s persona. Canada and the United States both recognize and protect personality rights through similar common law torts. The US appears to also seek […]

Spokeo: Will U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision Impact Privacy Damages in Canada?

The re-posting of this article is part of a cross-posting agreement with CyberLex. The Spokeo decision’s requirement that there be a concrete injury in order to ground privacy damages is not just a U.S. issue. Canadian courts have been wrestling for some time with the question of what damages look like in the context of […]

More Money, More Problems: The Science, the Law, and the Fight over CRISPR Patents

From Lab Bench to Court Bench: The Science, the Law, and the CRISPR Patent Dispute Whenever a new technology has the potential to be ground-breaking and extremely valuable, there are bound to be disputes about invention and ownership. From Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison to the new space race, scientists and inventors are often driven […]

Batmobile Declared a Character Deserving of Copyright Protection, Finally Invincible

The U.S. Ninth Circuit court held in DC Comics v Towle ("Towle") that Mark Towle’s Batmobile replicas infringed DC Comics’ copyrights, and that the Batmobile was a "character" deserving of copyright protection.

Branding the TPP: Trademark Pros & Problems

An overview of what the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement would change in Canadian policy The Government of Canada is inviting Canadians to read and comment on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), along with the government’s Summary of the Agreement, which provides an overview of how the TPP would affect Canada. The summary suggests that the largest […]

'Made in America’ 2015? The TPP and the Future of Canada’s Digital Economy

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (“TPP”) agreement pages of both the Office of the United States Trade Representative and the White House display an understandable, if not provocative, logo extolling that the trade deal is “Made in America”. For a trade deal whose negotiations spanned the length of President Obama’s term in office, this is hardly surprising: with the end of […]

What Should Be Included in a Canadian Orphan Drug Regulatory Framework

As the new Liberal government turns its mind to the application of substantive policies, it will have to decide what to do with the Canadian orphan drug regulatory framework (ODRF) that has been in development. This framework, based in large part on the example of the United States Orphan Drug Act (US ODA), which has […]